..and the crying Celtic fan who inspired Henrik Larsson to stop them winning 10
Larsson says crying fan fired-up quest to halt Gers
HENRIK LARSSON says a secret conversation with a tearful Celtic fan fired him up to blow apart Rangers’ hopes of hitting 10 in a row.
The super Swede admits he still hadn’t quite grasped the enormity of what lay in store heading into the final week of his debut season at Parkhead and with Rangers needing a Celtic slip to make history.
But that changed after a chance encounter with the emotional Hoops diehard as the exhausting title marathon entered the crucial final yards.
Twenty-two years on and with the roles reversed in Glasgow ahead of the new season, Larsson has now backed Neil Lennon’s Celtic to go one step further than their arch rivals in 1998.
Walter Smith’s side was packed with battle-hardened title veterans but Larsson reckons that worked in the Hoops’ favour as complacency set in at Ibrox.
And he says there’s no chance of his old pal Lennon allowing that to happen at Celtic.
It’s 23 years ago today Wim Jansen took over as Celtic boss and within a few weeks he’d made Larsson his first signing.
And speaking to Kris Boyd and Robert Snodgrass on The Lockdown Tactics podcast, the Swedish striker has lifted the lid on the moment it finally hit home what being a Celtic player meant.
He said: “Stopping them winning 10 in a row was so important and the way we did it was exciting for everybody.
“Part of the reason we succeeded was because we had six or seven new players coming in who didn’t really understand what we had gone into.
“But it sunk in for me the second-last game when we came back to Parkhead after the game against Dunfermline.
“A grown man came up to me and cried and said, ‘you have to stop them winning 10’. That’s what told me what it really means to the fans.”
A week later Larsson opened the scoring within three minutes of a 2-0 win over
St Johnstone that sparked enough tears to fill the Clyde in the Parkhead stands.
Many believed Smith’s side – with Andy Goram, Richard Gough, Mark Hateley and Ally McCoist at it’s core – would finish the job.
Jansen was a relative unknown and after losing his first two league games it looked grim. But Rangers faltered and
Larsson thinks complacency set in for Smith’s men as Jansen’s side romped home.
The same could be a threat to Celtic this time round. But the man who struck 242 goals and won the title four times for the Hoops before leaving for Barcelona in 2004, insists there’s still a quality gap that should see Lennon’s men stay on top.
Larsson said: “It’s going to be tough because Rangers are going to do everything in their power to stop them winning 10. But the quality of players at Celtic is a little bit better.
“When you look back at 1997 the Rangers team was a little bit older than the Celtic team is at present as well.
“That helped us a little bit. A lot of them had been there for many years and were used to winning stuff. If you get complacent then the hungrier one is always going to get it.
“I hope we get 10 in a row. It would be great – and it would be a great party as well.”
Larsson was linked with a return to Celtic in 2014 as manager. The Parkhead idol would have had a rapturous reception had he been chosen instead of Ronny Deila after Lennon’s first stint. But the
Swede, 48, said: “My ambitions and the club’s ambitions were not the same at the time. I don’t think about it too much.
“But Neil is doing a great job. I don’t know if I will ever come back to Celtic in a managerial or coaching way.
“It’s the club that has to ask me if they feel I’m good enough to be there.”
Larsson also revealed his wife Magdalena sealed his Barcelona move from Celtic as he was with Sweden at Euro 2004.
He added: “I told her she would have to go over and negotiate the contract. She did it and it was a great contract!”